TITLE: 🔥Burna Boy & Squid Games Create Witnesses Not Fans
VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSg8Li1KAFs

[music] >> Who wins a Grammy and thanks to algorithm? Nobody. You're rehearsing for a machine that will never clap for you. You're studying analytics like a scripture. You're posting at 3:17 p.m. because some coach tells you that's the sweet spot. You do all that, then the night comes for your show. You got 10,000 followers. You're in the building and there's only two folding chairs and one's your cousin. You did all this optimizing for the algorithm, but the algorithm can't feel character and that's why you're invisible. This is signal theory. Whether they be other such signs as say triangles, squares, circles, astrological signs, or whatever. These are symbols. Sometimes a symbol is a little bit more concrete and less abstract than that, as when you get a mythological symbol, like a dragon. But all these things are symbols and the manipulation of symbols to represent events going on in the real world is what I call thinking. We've all been sold a lie. They'll tell you that growth equals connection, followers equal loyalty, marketing equals meaning, but we know that's not true. It seems like marketers are selling snake oil and everybody's drinking it. There's always a formula. The producer says there's a formula for a hit song and the growth coach says there's a formula for popularity. But here's the problem, formulas create averages and average art doesn't move anyone. If they give everyone the same formula, you'll start to see the art look the same and it will be ineffective. >> Therefore, if we have to interview you to understand your story, to know anything about you, then that means it's missing in the art. You hear most of Nigerian music or I would say African I don't even know what to say. Afrobeat as you people call it. It's mostly about nothing. Literally nothing. There's no substance to it. Like there's like nobody's talking about anything. It's just a great time. It's an amazing time. You know what I mean? But at the end of the day life is not an amazing time. You know what I mean? No matter how nice you want to your your over time you're having now or you had at some point or you plan to have, yeah? You're still going to face life. Yeah. >> And If I'm lying. Exactly. [clears throat] So it's like for me I feel like music should be that. Music should be the essence of the artist. You understand? The artist is is is is a person like me speaking for myself. The artist is a person who has good days, bad days, great days, and worst days. You know what I mean? And for me if I give you something like this with my face on it and my name then I should be giving you that experience. >> Yeah. You can reverse engineer trends. You can buy ads. You can study analytics, but you can't reverse engineer recognition because recognition doesn't come from scale. Recognition comes from signal. Recognition comes from the people. Real people, not bots, not algorithms. Most people are broadcasting noise. They're optimizing for everyone, so they become no one. Signal is a part of your art that only your people recognize. Inside jokes, local legends, an object that's passed down through history, a local color palette, that's something that a bot can't decode, but a real person feels it instantly. Meaning is the most important thing in our lives. Certainly because uh what I call the will to meaning the wish to find and to fulfill meaning is the basic motivation in human beings. When you put signals in your art, then you can stop begging strangers to pay attention. And you could start calling your tribe by name. When I came out with my first record, I followed the rules. Cultural rules. What's the cultural rules? Whenever you come out with your first rhyme, you shout the ancestors. >> [clears throat] >> But you don't even speak before you shout the ancestors. We used to have a thing back in the days, I don't know if y'all familiar with Olde English 800, but it's a malt liquor drink. We used to take the Olde English 800, pour it out before you even put it to your mouth. BEFORE YOU PUT THE HEINEKEN, BEFORE ANYTHING. Pour it out for my dudes that ain't here. This is what the record companies took away. Dudes is always talking about, "YO, WE GOT THE CRISTAL. WE GOT THE THIS AND the that and the the the Patron and this and that." They never talk about pouring none out for their dudes. Preach. They drinking it all for themselves. Never once DO YOU SAY, "YEAH, I GOT THE PATRON, BUT THIS GOES OUT FOR MY DUDE RIGHT HERE. NOW, LET ME START." These were cultural rules that we had that protected you from corporate life. I went on Amazon to buy a universal remote, and my wife said, "Just pick one. They're all the same." That's what happens when you optimize for everyone. You become a universal remote. You become interchangeable, cheap, plastic, easy to replace, forgettable. When Nas talks about Queensbridge, he's not trying to be universal. He's making Queensbridge universal. When Outkast paints a picture of Atlanta and Atlanta culture, explaining the texture of Atlanta, using the slang from Atlanta, they're not trying to be global. They're making Atlanta global. Well, me and Aquemini was actually like a blending of both of the signs, the Aquarius and the Gemini. Like letting people know that like two totally different worlds and come together and make this music. You know, and then at the time we had some people, you know what I'm saying, running around to my eyes, Outkast going to break up cuz we were so like, you know, like totally like opposite, you know what I'm saying? Some people be calling it the odd couple or whatever, whatever, you know what I'm saying? But it I mean, that's our formula. It's always worked like that. When NWA said Straight Outta Compton, nobody knew what Compton was except for the West Coast. Nobody even cared. And now everyone talks about Compton. Chief Keef, Kanye, Lupe, Lil Durk, Chance the Rapper, Vic Mensa, Chicago produced all of them. These artists are different from each other. All of them together gives a complete picture of Chicago. Signal doesn't fragment culture. It completes it. Look at Squid Game. Squid Game wasn't designed to please the algorithm. Squid Game has a lot of signals. This is where the inspiration for the stairs in Squid Game come from. And the guards, the inspiration comes from ants. The guard mask, squares, triangles, circles, that dictates the hierarchy. Just like ants have a hierarchy. This shot of the dinner was inspired by Judy Chicago's triangular installation. The 1970 Korean school character inspired the giant doll that they use. It's not just random aesthetics. They didn't just throw things together. Everything they created is grounded in something. One of my favorite things to do in the studio was to have a record pull. A record pull where you you just stop for a minute and everyone takes turns playing music for one another. And the best thing is when they tell you why this is great. It's so good because it allows you to hear music through someone else's ears. So somebody will say, "Oh, this means so much to me because it solved this problem when I was 13 years old." Or because this lyric just blows my mind. Or because, "Do you realize that the writer of this piece of music wrote this when he was about to lose his mind." Or because, uh blah blah blah blah blah. This person was trying to imitate that one and actually failed and this is the result of it. Actually a failure. And that's so exciting because it allows you to hear it filtering what you're hearing through a new set of knowledge that you didn't have before. Frida Kahlo, she painted herself. These are self-portraits that she painted a unibrow on purpose. It's a signal. It was a fight against European beauty standards. [music] She even painted a little bit of a mustache. This was her middle finger to the colonizers. >> [music] >> Instead of trying to fit in, she leaned into her Mexican identity. Peggy Gou is a DJ from South Korea. She embeds South Korean culture into her fashion. She uses South Korean mythological characters and it's been able to translate all the world. Even some of her color palettes come from her upbringing and her culture. There are artists with half the talent, but twice the audience, because they chose to show their world and you chose to hide yours. As I always say, I can make you look, but I can't make you see. Seeing is a choice. If you want to find a way to support the channel, please become a member. Please subscribe. Hit the notification bell. This is Brian from The King's Hand. The departed hand of the king. >> [music]